Staff/Principal Software Engineer

CloudZero

Staff and Principal Software Engineers building scalable backend systems for AI cost intelligence at CloudZero. Leading architecture decisions and collaborating with engineering teams to deliver impactful solutions.

Posted 6/4/2026full-timeSan Francisco • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $220,000 - $290,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSBigQueryCloudDistributed SystemsETLPythonSQL

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Own significant technical domains end to end: architecture, implementation, and the long-term health of the systems you build
Make and communicate high-impact design decisions across teams and stakeholders
Identify and drive improvements to performance, scalability, and reliability before they become incidents
Collaborate with product, engineering leadership, and customers to scope problems and deliver solutions that move the business
Raise the technical bar for the engineers around you through code review, design feedback, and direct mentorship
Operate with a high degree of autonomy; you don't need a ticket to identify a problem worth solving

Requirements

What you’ll need

Significant experience building and operating production backend systems at scale
Strong proficiency in Python and/or another backend language; comfort reading and reasoning about systems in languages you didn't write
Deep familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred), distributed systems, and the tradeoffs that come with scale
Experience with data pipelines, ETL frameworks, or stream processing in production environments
Strong SQL and hands-on experience with cloud data warehouses (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, or similar)
You use AI tools in your own data platform work. You can describe your own workflow and the failure modes you've worked around. Strategy-deck AI doesn't qualify; we want hands-on
You've built something that other internal teams have adopted. A library, a pattern, a service.
The ability to communicate technical complexity clearly to engineers, product, and leadership
A track record of shipping, not just designing

Benefits

Comp & perks

Offers Equity
Offers Bonus

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

Pythonbackend programmingcloud infrastructuredistributed systemsdata pipelinesETL frameworksstream processingSQLcloud data warehousesAI tools

Soft Skills

communicationmentorshipcollaborationproblem-solvingdesign feedbackautonomytechnical decision-makingperformance improvementscalabilityreliability